Yard Adventures Search Results

How To: Install No-Frills Drip Irrigation

Solving a Dilemma This is a simple how-to for a cost effective drip irrigation system for your garden. My motivation to set up my garden for drip irrigation was pretty simple. In the summer, it gets to 90+ degrees outside, and my 50’ garden hose didn’t reach the far extents where I have the majority of my large trees. I noticed a large amount of the water I applied to the trees just ran off and did absolutely nothing. This was a huge waste of resources.

Red Dead Review part 1: Sandbox Gameplay

Red Dead Redemption is hard to pin down in game play and story. The game offers this massive multi-layered world in which the player can roam freely, offering plenty of challenges, beautiful graphics and atmosphere for the player to experience. Yet after some point the whole world feels barren and unchangeable, and your achievements are nothing more than a trophy that does not matter in the sandbox world the player resides in. The story, told in three arcs, offers an inconsistent narrative of...

News: Alan Wake Review

Looking back on Alan Wake, more than a year and a half after its release, it's still one of my favorite games. The graphics and ambience have held up well in comparison to any other story driven game, and it's still the best third-person horror game out there, in terms of gameplay. Given how few horror games are actually out there this generation, I would definitely recommend giving this game a try since it's dirt cheap to rent or buy.

News: The Fight

Here's our prank. Start off by getting a shit car, you know what im talking about...one of those shit cars you get from a junk yard. have one of you take it and park it outside of a public place where a ton of people are everyday.(cafe, coffee shop, etc.) Then have Bam act super pissed off, run up to the car and just start wailing on it with some sort of bar or bat or something. smash the windshield, break all the windows, just break everything. then the one who parked the car, whoever it hap...

How to Play Dead Space 2: Achievement & Trophy Guide

It's currently 2011, but when you fire up your game console, put your hands on the controller and play the new Dead Space 2 video game, you're warped into the future— into the year 2511— just 3 years after the events that took place in the first Dead Space. And it's sure to be a beautiful, frightening, futuristic experience.

How To: Become a Great Thrift Store Shopper

Shopping at a thrift store can be a fun adventure, a daunting task, a way to save money, or a combination of any or all of those. There's no question that buying secondhand is almost always cheaper and buying at a thrift store undoubtedly so. But it can also be a lot of work. Here are a few simple tips to make the process a little easier.

How To: Assemble a Survival Kit

I am writing this quick post in response to the recent earthquakes and tsunamis that are affecting Japan. As soon as the news broke, and we began to hear of tsunami warning for our area, I immediately realized how under prepared I was for a natural disaster. The thing that drove this point home even deeper was the number of people asking me for advice on what they could do to prepare for the possibility that we are hit by one of the resultant tsunamis. Many thoughts raced through my mind, and...

News: Double Fine Improves the Psychonauts Meat Circus!

Anyone who likes shooters is going to hate me for saying this: the best game of the 2000's for me was Psychonauts by Double Fine Studios. It came out in 2005 for the original Xbox, achieving critical acclaim, but never selling very well due to its sheer kookiness and poor marketing. Over the ensuing years it has become a cult classic, with downloadable re-releases on Xbox 360 (sadly no longer available). PC has allowed gamers who missed out on the original to bask in its ageless glory.

News: 3 Unique Alternative Web Browsers for Your iOS Device

A few weeks ago I wrote about Atomic Web as the best web browser for iOS devices, and while I believe it is a superior option, Atomic Web is not the only alternative web browser you can use on your iOS device. There are three more—Dual Browser, iCabMobile, and iSwifter—that are all great options because of their unique features. Let’s check them out.

News: Goodbye Takahashi Meijin, World's Fastest Button-Presser

Pressing the button on a video game controller quickly is like running the 100 meter dash. Both require dedication and a precise exercise regime. There is also an odd quality about both in which the range between the very best and complete neophyte is tiny. Sprinter Usain Bolt holds the record in the 100 meter run at 9.58 seconds, only three seconds faster than I ran in freshmen high school track. And yet there are thousands of sprinters from a hundred years of Olympic competition in between ...

Privacy Is So 2001: An Anime Video Game Novel About Social Media

Japanese people are into many things Americans find weird—like YouTube's beloved canine-hosted cooking show or Daito Manabe's light up LED grills or even more insane, a vending machine that distributes live crabs. In light of these cultural oddities, the Japanese phenomenon of visual novels (NVL, or bijuaru noberu), seems relatively normal. A meeting place of books and video games, visual novels are a sort of "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" for the new generation.

News: Stories This Week in My Balloon Animals World

First off, let's explain the story that inspired the phot I'm using for the post. Friday night, restaurant gig at Vallartas Mexican Restaurant in Lutz/Land O' Lakes, and I was making balloons for all the children throughout the evening. As I'm about halfway through my shift, I approach a table with two little girls (and their parents). One girl was about 6 with straight blond hair and the second girl, like pictured, had the most adorable little blond ringlets bouncing around her face as she g...

News: Discover the Hidden Micro-Monsters in Your Neighborhood Creeks and Ponds

There is a secret world hidden just beneath the surface of every pond, lake, and stream. Those waters are filled with wails of hideous creates murdering other hideous creatures for food and sport. Beautiful animals like dragonflies and damselflies that you see in the light of day start their lives in this sparse spartan hellscape. Luckily, being giant mammals, we can pluck these creatures from the depths and look at all of their cool behaviors! All you need is a pond, net, and curiosity.

News: Indie Games Hit the Red Carpet at the IndieCade Awards

Last Thursday, on October 7th, indie game developers from around the world walked down a red carpet in Santa Monica, California in the hopes of winning an IndieCade award. We previously discussed the IndieCade festival and conference, but the award show is a smaller, more inclusive event that provides finalists the opportunity to see their project on stage with rewards by sponsors such as LG, who presented this year’s ceremony.

News: Friday Indie Game Review Roundup: Grand Theft Auto's Sci-Fi Genesis Granddad

Grand Theft Auto 3 was the biggest video game of the last decade, by far, introducing open-world adventure games to consoles, a genre that now rivals shooters and sports games for market dominance. A huge map, decentralized narrative, and myriad of interlocking quests and objectives that happen in a flexible order all became hallmarks of the "new" genre, along with the ability to shape the morality and reputation of your character. And most importantly, all of the quests and stories are compl...

News: Friday Not-So-Indie Game Review Roundup: Combat Racing

Deep in their heart of hearts, most Americans dream of having their car festooned with missile launchers and machine guns. Anyone who cuts them off or looks at them funny in traffic could be dispensed with quick and extreme justice, leaving a real-life James Bond and his passengers free to pursue their American dreams faster than everyone else. Racing games and shooting games are among the two most popular types of video games. So why aren't there more games where one can race cars and shoot ...

News: Sense of Wonder Night 2011 Celebrates Innovation In Game Design

The Tokyo Game Show (TGS) is the biggest video game expo in the most game crazy country on Earth. It is kind of a big deal. As such, their "indie" game showcase/contest Sense of Wonder Night (SOWN) is a major opportunity for developers of all shapes and sizes to showcase their work to important industry leaders and expo attendees. 2011 will be SOWN's fourth year, and it began accepting submissions yesterday.

News: Minecraft, Meet Terraria

Minecraft was first released just a few years ago, but when a paradigm-shifting piece of media comes along the rest of the world is quick to take inspiration from it. The absolutely terrible XBLA knock-off FortressCraft was the first, and last month a much more interesting game called Terraria came out on Steam for $9.99. It is clearly inspired by Minecraft, and there is a long checklist of identical features. It is, nonetheless, a very different product, and just might be called the first in...

News: Bullet Hell or Bullet Heaven? The Case of Trouble Witches NEO

The Xbox 360 is America's video game system. It was designed in America, it has better market share in America than anywhere else, and it has the most overtly macho game catalog of any console. For many Xbox fanboys, gaming heaven is shooting hordes of really well-animated things in the most intuitive way possible. Trouble Witches NEO - Episode 1: Daughters of Amalgam, released last week on Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) for $10 by Japanese developer Adventure Planning Service, is a typical Xbox 360...

News: Celestia is here!

Celestia is HERE! On Wednesday, October 27, 2010, Celestia joined alongside the other worlds in the Spiral. WIzards that are level 48 or higher and have completed the "Final Countdown" quest to defeat Malistaire can now go to Celestia!

Metro 2033: Life

What separates Metro 2033 from other FPS games? Life. There are underground towns, markets, children, music, and so much background chatter than sometimes you can't single out a particular conversation.

How To: Things to Do on WonderHowTo (05/02 - 05/08)

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most popular communities. Users can join and participate in any World they're interested in, as well as start their own community.

How To: Things to Do on WonderHowTo (04/11 - 04/17)

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most popular communities. Users can join and participate in any World they're interested in, as well as start their own community.